After training in secret waiting for the sign, this novel is almost ready to release upon the world!

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This is an interesting idea, for the most part pulled off well. F. Paul Wilson brings two different series to a close in this one book- the “Adversary Cycle” and “Repairman Jack”.

There is a lot to like about this book. Spoilers follow.

One of the things I liked most about this book is the way it handles the climax and the aftermath. As an author, Wilson has the straight-up guts to allow the Earth and its inhabitants’ lives to be changed at the end, forever. This is not some simple happy ending. Continents are damaged, cities are ruined, people die and lives are broken. Disaster is not averted – only disasters that would have been *much worse*.

I also find his “Secret History” concepts fun and interesting, and enjoy the other characters from the “Adversary Cycle”.

But probably the main reason I am giving this a 3-star rating instead of a 4, is that I don’t enjoy those other characters and concepts as much as I enjoy Repairman Jack. I’m really reading this book for him. He’s such an absolutely great character – a Jack Reacher everyman before Jack Reacher. A noir fixer for those with no one else to turn to, who gets sucked unwillingly into dealing with impossible forces and retains a pragmatic mindset throughout. F. Paul Wilson wrote such great page-turning thrillers throughout that series, that I was hoping for a heaping chunk of that in this finale. Instead so much is left on the table – a true showdown with the white trash nemesis group the Kickers, their half-magical rackets and the malevolent intent behind their populist front; a teenage oracle with solid black eyes; a man and his brother’s ghost, and many others. I wanted them and Jack front and center, fighting it out face to face or side by side.

Still a fun read. Also to be fair I am not a reader of the “Adversary Cycle” – perhaps that would provide the fourth star. But for me, a much fuller and delicious reading experience is to be found in the other “Repairman Jack” books.

To sum up, this is a good coda to a fine series – I guess I’m just not as interested in the other notes that come from the other symphony.

On it’s surface this is a first-hand account of the life of the famous Sioux holy man and leader Black Elk, as told in translation through a series of conversations to the poet John G. Neihardt. This occurred in 1930, when Black Elk was one of the few still-living witnesses to both the death of Custer and the massacre at Wounded Knee. So on that level it’s already quite fascinating. What is transcendent is the beautiful space the seemingly simple elegance of the prose creates. It’s no accident.

I just now turned at random to a page where Black Elk ends a chapter on the killing and unknown final resting place of Crazy Horse:

“It does not matter where his body lies, for it is grass; but where his spirit is, it will be good to be.”